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Saturday, 7 February 2015

When Minding Your Own Business Harms Others

Another story of abuse, silencing and injustice is being uncovered across the blogosphere at the moment.

It's a story that's been lived out, but mostly unwritten, for a number of years now. Then, a few months ago, the one who'd been silenced was given a 'voice'.

And things started to hit the fan...

and bloggers started blogging...

and people with reputations to lose finally started to engage.

I've read a number of posts and opinions on this specific situation, and the same attitudes are being displayed this time as they were last time.

And the time before that.

And the time before that.

Good, well-intentioned, christian men and women are lamenting the fact that people are actually discussing the problem! "We don't know all the facts." "We should all just mind our own business."

A few years ago I might have said something similar. But not any more. Because I've learned that there is one very compelling reason not to stay silent.

Silence actually enables an abuser!

When we don't speak out, when we won't ask tough questions, when we decide to 'mind our own business', we effectively hand an abuser a free pass.

There is an ever-growing list of 'authority' figures in the church who bully and abuse those 'under' them.

There are countless stories of damage inflicted by 'celebrity christians' who abuse their power and position to silence those who have neither.

Some of these situations have been on-going for years (some for decades!). And they have been covered up for just as long.

And that abuse and cover-up has been empowered by the silence of those who decided to 'mind their own business'.

The victims were left lying on the side of the road, bloodied and battered, while good men and women chose to mind their own business.

Now, finally, some of these situations are being addressed simply because enough 'nobodies' have spoken out and kept speaking out until they got a response.

It is all too apparent that sometimes the only way to 'motivate' those in power to actually investigate and address situations of abuse is to have a critical mass of people asking questions and raising the issues.

And all it takes for the evil of spiritual abuse to thrive in our churches is for good men and women to mind their own business!